Brooklyn
Date
Sunday, September 18, 2011
9am to 6pm
Location
Etsy Labs
Dumbo Brooklyn, NY
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9am – 10am – Registration & Breakfast
Location: Etsy Labs, room 712
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10am – 10:30am – The Few and Big to the Small and Many: Bill McKibben (via satellite) (@billmckibben)
Livestream and Q&A via twitter #HelloEtsy
Our economy is swiftly evolving, as we head from the few and big to the small and many. Imagine a farmers market not just in carrots but in electrons, for instance. We’re moving into a world where we connect more deeply on very practical things than we have in the last fifty years–and about time, since the ongoing climate crisis is going to make this not just attractive but necessary.
Location: Etsy Labs, Room 712 -
10:30am -10:45am – Etsy Welcome and Introduction from Adam Freed, Etsy Chief Operating Officer
Adam Freed is Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Etsy. It’s his job to support the internal teams at Etsy as they work hard to make the experience of browsing, shopping and selling on Etsy even better.
Location: Etsy Labs, room 712
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10:45am – 11:45am – Incubating Place: Transforming the Public Realm through Creative Retailing: Ken Farmer, Project for Public Spaces
Drawing upon international case studies including Renew Newcastle, the Dekalb Market, and Granville Island, this session will explore the potential for creative retail strategies to complement and enhance the surrounding public realm through ”Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper” placemaking interventions that support small local entrepreneurs and build upon the creativity of the local community. Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them.
Location: Etsy Labs, room 712
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11:45am – 12:00pm – Break
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12:00pm – 1:00pm – The Case for Working with Your Hands, Matthew Crawford
Matthew B. Crawford is a philosopher and mechanic. His New York Times best-selling book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work brings alive an experience that was once quite common, but now seems to be receding from society— the experience of making and fixing things with your hands. Those of us who sit in an office often feel a lack of connection to the material world, a sense of loss, and find it difficult to say exactly what we do all day. For anyone who felt hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, Shop Class as Soulcraft seeks to restore the honor of the manual trades as a life worth choosing. For anyone who feels thwarted by their own material stuff, Crawford makes a case for reclaiming some measure of self-reliance.As a speaker, Crawford draws from the history of philosophy to consider how our economic choices form us (and deform us). In doing so, he turns an inquiring gaze on the absurdities of the modern workplace, the psychology of consumerism, and some of the weirder consequences of our technological enthusiasm. Often darkly funny, he mixes stories of contemporary life with careful arguments to illuminate our ongoing struggle to live a fully human life, and to figure out what such a life might consist of.
*This talk will be livestreamed via Etsy’s online labs
Location: Etsy Labs, room 712 -
1:00pm – 2:00pm - Lunch
Location: Etsy Library, Room 500
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2:00pm – 2:55pm – Workshops
1. Greening Your Office for Beginners
Kate Houstoun, Director of Sustainable Business Services, Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and Jared Lucas, Head of Project Development, BioNeighbors
Kate and Jared will lead workshop participants through a one-hour exploration of workplace sustainability. Participants will learn simple (and not-so-simple) steps they can take to improve the environmental impact of their work environment. Participants will leave the workshop with the beginning of their written plan to improve the efficiency, products, and behaviors of their workplace to reduce its toll on the earth.Location: Etsy Library, Room 500
2. Small Business Finances 101: Ryan Thompson,Vice President of Business Development, Outright
The next time a friend asks “How’s business?” imagine having a better answer than “Things are fine.” Keeping up with your business finances doesn’t have to be painful or difficult, and some of the best financial insights about your business are at your fingertips… but you’ve probably never seen them. After all, most of us aren’t in business so we can keep track of numbers and stay organized for taxes. In Finance 101, the experts from Outright.com will share some dead-simple advice on how to track and measure your business. Have you ever checked to see who your best customers are? Or where you spend the most money? You can check your finance degrees and balance sheets at the door… you won’t need them here! Finance 101 will teach you some of the simplest ways to measure your business successes and challenges, without finance jargon and complex math.
Location: Etsy Labs, Room 712 -
3:00pm – 3:55pm – Panel: The Challenges of Sustainable Design in a Local Ecosystem
This panel will address the challenges of sustaining a local economy while pursuing innovation by design. Laetitia Wolff, executive director at desigNYC and founder of futureflair, will moderate a lively discussion on how to sustain small businesses, engage local communities, and bring innovative, design-centric products and projects to market while remaining socially responsible. The panelists will address the unique considerations and opportunities available to businesses and community organizations at a local level, and conclude with practical advice for focusing on sustainability in a local ecosystem.
Moderator: Laetitia Wolff, executive director at desigNYC and founder of futureflair
Panelists:
• Emily Abruzzo, principle, Abruzzo Bodziak Architects
• Erika Doering, principle, Erika Doering Design
• Victor Lytvinenko, co-founder + designer, RALEIGHDENIM
Location: Etsy Labs, room 712 -
4:00pm – 4:15pm – Break
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4:15pm – 5:00pm – New Mutualism Will Save Us:Sara Horowitz, founder and executive director of Freelancers Union
Today’s creative professional face a paradox: with declining economic stability we need social services more than ever, yet our employers and our government are giving us less than ever. However, our unprecedented technological savvy and inter-connectedness have led us to the Age of Mutualism: businesses, organizations, and groups are re-inventing the principles of free association, mutualism, and community into market-oriented models that address their social needs. From individuals banding together to access health benefits at group rates, to cooperative housing, to crowd-sourcing information, to the national proliferation of local farmers markets, group affinity and mutual support are at the core of a new economic and organizing model that is going to make freelancing the best way to live and work in the 21st century.
Location: Etsy Labs, room 712 -
5:00pm – 5:15pm – Closing remarks
- Location: Etsy Labs, room 712
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5:15pm – 6:30pm – Hello Etsy closing reception
- Location: Etsy Labs, room 712
Speaker Bios
Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time Magazine called him ‘the planet’s best green journalist’ and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was ‘probably the country’s most important environmentalist.’ Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, he holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges, including the Universities of Massachusetts and Maine, the State University of New York, and Whittier and Colgate Colleges. In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Matthew B. Crawford, is a philosopher and mechanic. His New York Times best-selling book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work brings alive an experience that was once quite common, but now seems to be receding from society— the experience of making and fixing things with your hands. Those of us who sit in an office often feel a lack of connection to the material world, a sense of loss, and find it difficult to say exactly what we do all day. For anyone who felt hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, Shop Class as Soulcraft seeks to restore the honor of the manual trades as a life worth choosing. For anyone who feels thwarted by their own material stuff, Crawford makes a case for reclaiming some measure of self-reliance.As a speaker, Crawford draws from the history of philosophy to consider how our economic choices form us (and deform us). In doing so, he turns an inquiring gaze on the absurdities of the modern workplace, the psychology of consumerism, and some of the weirder consequences of our technological enthusiasm. Often darkly funny, he mixes stories of contemporary life with careful arguments to illuminate our ongoing struggle to live a fully human life, and to figure out what such a life might consist of.
Bio: Matthew B. Crawford majored in physics as an undergraduate, then turned to political philosophy, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, he also runs a motorcycle repair business in Richmond, Virginia.
Sara Horowitz (@Sara_Horowitz) has spent her career building entrepreneurial solutions to support the needs of the growing independent workforce. She is the founder and Executive Director of Freelancers Union, and founder and CEO of Freelancers Insurance Company.Recognizing that independent workers were critical to the economy but excluded from basic worker protections and supports, Sara created the nonprofit organization Working Today in 1995. This led to the creation of the nonprofit Freelancers Union in 2003, to promote the needs of the independent workforce through advocacy, education, and service. Freelancers Union was Sara’s pioneering and innovative approach to build a new form of unionism through creative, market-based solutions to pressing social problems. One of these solutions was to launch Freelancers Insurance Company (FIC) in 2008, a social-purpose business wholly owned by Freelancers Union whose mission is to provide independent workers with affordable, stable, and portable health insurance. Both Freelancers Union and FIC are built on the idea of mutual support, meaning that a large community can create power in markets and power in politics.
In recognition of her efforts to create a support system for independent workers, Sara was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (“Genius Grant”) in 1999. Sara is a trustee of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and is on the Board of the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation. Schwab Foundation selected her as one of its 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow at the 2002 World Economic Forum, and Crain’s included her in the “25 People to Watch” in 2010.
Thank you so much to The {NewNew} for volunteering to help make Hello Etsy a vibrant, fun and friendly representation of our wonderful community. You can find out more about this local Etsy Team on their blog.Through Project for Public Spaces, Ken Farmer works with communities around the world to enhance public vitality. His recent projects range from a master plan for Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island Marina, to lighter, quicker, cheaper interventions on the Buffalo waterfront.
Ken is a co-founder of DoTank:Brooklyn, a collaborative of urbanists and artists working to enhance cities through small-scale change. He is also the Creative Director of Nuit Blanche NY and an avid urban cyclist.
Kate Houstoun leads the Sustainable Business Network of Philadelphia’s programs and services for the organization’s 500+ business members, including education, research, and communications. SBN is a business organization that works to build a future where business owners are investors in the quality of life of all citizens. SBN challenges and supports the business community of Greater Philadelphia to build profitable enterprises that serve community needs, share wealth, and protect the environment. Kate has spent most of her career in Philadelphia, working before SBN at American Friends Service Committee and The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able program. Kate keeps herself much too busy by serving on boards that support other issues of importance to her, including criminal justice, public transportation, national security, and urban horticulture.
Jared Lucas is Head of Project Development for BioNeigbors, a leading green roof installation firm based in Philadelphia, Jared leads the company’s business development activities. He has had a diverse career that has taken him all over the world. He has led climate change strategy for a global energy company in Paris, taught pre-school in Philadelphia, worked as a kayak guide in Maryland and California, and even taught rock climbing in Switzerland. Every step he took was led by his passion for sustainability and the merging of economic, environmental, and social considerations. Jared has earned graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, MinesParisTech, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Jared believes everyone should teach once in their life.
Ryan Thompson is vice president of business development at Outright. Ryan has ten years of business development, corporate strategy and finance management experience across Intel and Intuit. While at Intuit, Ryan managed the acquisition of MyCorporation.com, then became a leader of TurboTax’s New Business Initiatives. In 2008, Ryan founded FileLater, an IRS e-file provider for filing tax extensions and estimated taxes for small business customers.
A design writer, curator and strategist, Laetitia Wolff has recently joined designyc, an organization that connects nonprofits to good design, as their first executive director. She is the founder of futureflair, a creative conduit that provides a critical eye on all things visual and a multi-faceted understanding of the cultural value and strategic dimensions of design, through integrated communications strategies as well as innovative, content-rich programming.
This year, she created expoTENtial, 10 urban interventions x 10 design labs, a collaborative platform that investigates ideas for a livelier and healthier New York–each lab using a design strategy to address a challenge to urban life. Wolff has co-curated a number of similar interdisciplinary labs, among which “Value Meal: Design and (over)Eating” and last year “Headspace, on Scent as Design,” at Parsons School of Design, in partnership with MoMA and IFF.
She has consulted for Parsons on strategic alliances, programming and intellectual branding, as well as for the Swiss EPFL+ECAL lab on exhibitions, media and industry partnerships.
Formerly the editor-in-chief of Surface and Graphis, Wolff is the author of the award-winning monograph Massin and of Real Photo Postcards. She often moderates design debates and is a regular contributor to Etapes, a design and visual culture magazine.
Emily has been a lecturer and guest critic at numerous institutions, including Yale University and Parsons The New School for Design, where she is an instructor in the Interior Design Program. She is a founding editor of 306090 Books, as well as editor of Workbook, the official catalog of “Workshopping: An American Model of Architectural Practice,” The U.S. Pavilion for La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Architettura 2010. Her writing has been featured in several publications, including Yale Constructs, The New City Reader, Architecture Briefs: Architectural Model Making, and the forthcoming Handbook of Interior Design.
Erika Doering is an architectural interior designer and educator specializing in sustainable design. She studied Studio Art and Architecture at the University of Vermont and in Florence, Italy. Erika received a Masters degree in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute in New York. She worked in the field of architecture and interior design for many years before founding Erika Doering Design in 1995. Erika Doering Design is a holistic design business, aimed at delivering all encompassing design services, from custom furniture design to architectural detailing.
Erika teaches Sustainable Product Design at Parsons Product Design Department (Manhattan) and Pratt Institute (Brooklyn). She is a long-standing member of O2NY and a co-founder of the Association of Women Industrial Designers (AWID).
Victor Lytvinenko is part of a duo (with his wife Sarah) of North Carolina designers and entrepreneurs on a mission to help revitalize the garment industry, one pair of jeans at a time. Raleigh Denim was founded by looking close to home for the sourcing of their denim brand. With Cone Denim Mills right in their backyard of Raleigh, North Carolina, the couple has access to denim from one of America’s premier mills, allowing them to create jeans themselves, by hand. Made from 100% locally-sourced materials — everything from the denim to the zippers — each pair is hand-signed and individually numbered.
Download the New York Press Release here